>> kerry has said he wants to focus on the middle east, and that has been a deficit in terms of the israeli-palestinian track. certainly, i mean, the arab spring made it much more difficult, much more complicated, but some would argue made it more necessary. >> well, yeah. the middle east is also one of the drains that can suck all the oxygen out of the room. you know, you could get involved in it and get sucked down all these different kind of rabbit holes that exist in the middle east. syria, israel, palestine, egypt, iran, iraq which could, you know, get rough, afghanistan, which is a problem. all of those things are, i guess, threads that he could pull on that could leave him not enough time to deal with the trans-atlantic relationship, to deal with china, to deal with our neighbors like mexico where their priority issues. to deal with rebuilding the international institutions that need to be rebuilt. i think he has to be a bit careful not to fall into that trap. >> finally, what about iran and whether we are going to be caught up in something that israel launches or that we have to launch with isr